texts themselves, especially religious texts, might well be invested with some of the divine qualities of the deity they were placed near. People believed, for example, that curse tablets (tablets on which one wrote a curse formula against someone) themselves might engender a curse on someone, especially if the tablet was placed near or in the divine presence. Many such examples as these could be given, but I want to offer one more that is crucial to the biblical tradition. The stories in the Old
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